Bill Stead, M.D.
Stead named to Institute of Medicine council
Bill Stead, M.D., associate vice chancellor for Health Affairs and Chief Strategy and Information Officer at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, has been appointed to the Council of the Institute of Medicine (IOM).
He is the first Vanderbilt University faculty member to serve in that capacity.
Stead, who also directs the Informatics Center , will fill the unexpired term of Margaret Hamburg, M.D., who resigned when she became commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
At the conclusion of that term on Dec. 31, 2010, Stead will be eligible for election to the Council for up to two consecutive three-year terms.
“This is just phenomenal,” said Jeff Balser, M.D., Ph.D., vice chancellor for Health Affairs and dean of Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, in announcing Stead's appointment.
“Vanderbilt is in place to lead in so many arenas of health care and science, due in no small part to (Dr. Stead's) values, vision and hard work,” Balser said. He “has given us such a strong lead in information science.”
“I am honored and excited to have a chance to help the IOM focus its energy,” Stead said.
“A decade ago, the Institute took the lead in pointing out the quality and safety problems of the health care non-system.
“Today it needs to step forward as an honest broker, with access to the world's experts, and help people understand how to redesign care to provide much more value,” Stead said.
Stead and Balser are among 20 current and former Vanderbilt faculty members who are members of the IOM.
Chartered in 1970 as part of the National Academy of Sciences “to serve as adviser to the nation to improve health,” the Institute prepares reports on subjects ranging from the quality of medical care to protecting the nation's food supply.
Members are elected on the basis of their professional achievement and commitment to service.
The 21-member Council approves the Institute's annual program plan and budget and provides policy guidance to the 1,700-member body.
Stead, the McKesson Foundation Professor of Biomedical Informatics, joined the Vanderbilt faculty in 1991.
Internationally known for his contributions to the field of biomedical informatics, he and his team have pioneered innovations at Vanderbilt including WizOrder and StarPanel, which have dramatically improved efficiency and reduced the cost of hospital care.
More recently, through Gov. Phil Bredesen's Volunteer e-health Initiative, Stead helped launched a regional electronic medical record demonstration project in southwest Tennessee.
He has served as president of the American College of Medical Informatics and the American Association for Medical Systems, and was founding editor-in-chief of the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association.
Stead also is a former chair of the board of regents of the National Library of Medicine, the world's largest medical library and the primary source of funding for biomedical informatics research grants.
He is the second member of his family to serve in that capacity and as a member of the IOM, following his father, the late Eugene Stead Jr., M.D., who served as chair of Medicine at Duke University and founded the physician assistant profession.